The auditorium shone with light; it grew murmurous with ecstatic
approval. The virginal face of Laurencine shot its rapture to Lucas as
she turned to shake hands with George.

"Jolly well done, isn't it?" said Lucas.

"Yes," said George.

Lucas, too content to notice the perfunctoriness of George's
affirmative, went on:

"When you think that they're performing it this very night in St.
Petersburg, Berlin, Paris, Brussels, and, I fancy, Rome, but I'm not
sure--marvellous, isn't it?"

"It is," said George ambiguously.

Though continuing to like him, he now definitely despised Everard. The
fellow had no artistic perceptions; he was a child. By some means he had
got through his Final, and was soon to be a junior partner in Enwright &
Lucas. George, however, did not envy Everard the soft situation; he only
pitied Enwright & Lucas. Everard had often urged George to go to musical
comedies more frequently, hinting that they were frightfully better
than George could conceive. _The Gay Spark_ gave Lucas away entirely; it
gave away his method of existence.

"I don't believe you like it," said sharp Laurencine.

"I adore it," George protested. "Don't you?"

"Oh! _I_ do, of course," said Laurencine. "I knew I should."

Lucas, instinctively on the defence, said:

"The second act's much better than the first."

George's hopes, dashed but not broken, recovered somewhat. After all
there had been one or two gleams of real jokes, and a catchiness in
certain airs; and the spark possessed temperament in profusion. It was
possible that the next act might be diverting.

"You do look tired," said Laurencine.

"Oh no, darling!" Lois objected. "I think he looks splendid."

She was intensely happy in the theatre. The box was very well
placed--since Irene had bought it--with a view equally good of the stage
and of the semicircle of boxes. Lois' glance wandered blissfully round
the boxes, all occupied by gay parties, and over the vivacious stalls.
She gazed, and she enjoyed being gazed at. She bathed herself in the
glitter and the gaudiness and the opulence and the humanity, as in tonic
fluid. She seemed to float sinuously and voluptuously immersed in it, as
in tepid water lit with sunshine.

"Do have a choc.," she invited eagerly.

George took a chocolate. She took one. They all took one. They all had
the unconscious pride of youth that does not know itself young. Each was
different from the others. George showed the reserve o